Crazy Nancy Takes A Leak

With each of its successive stories on the NSA's foreign intelligence-gathering program, the New York Times is putting over the Bush Administration's competence and diligence at fighting terrorism far more effectively than the Bushies could ever manage on their own. In their most recent installment, the Times reports that (1) the President did not initially authorize the NSA to expand its surveillance of international communications after 9/11, (2) he didn't have to because that decision was already authorized by a previous Executive Order (#12333, issued by Ronald Reagan in 1981), (3) General Michael Hayden, then head of the NSA and now Deputy National Intelligence Director, not only took operational responsibility for the decision but fully briefed the Senate and House Intelligence Committees within a month of 9/11, and (4) the only concern expressed by Democrats was that it be formally authorized by the President, which implicitly concedes that doing so is within his constitutional prerogatives.

If the original idea of stooging out the NSA program was to smear Dubya as "Big Brother," I really don't see what the point of continuing to flaggellate the story is, unless it's soley to provide aid & comfort to the enemy.

Jed Babbin thinks that that may be precisely what the Dems and their media allies are doing, and that House Minority Leader "Crazy Nancy" Pelosi is at least one of the illegal leakers:

It now appears - based on this morning's NYT report - that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and her staff have been part of the leaking crew on the NSA story. In having her letter to the then-head of the NSA declassified, Pelosi has been able to keep the NSA story alive, and even furthered it a bit. Parts of her letter were redacted due to national security concerns, yet the Times was able to find "sources" familiar with the full letter able to confirm what the redacted areas dealt with. Gee, a classified letter between Nancy Pelosi and the head of the NSA, who might know what the redacted sections involve, and who could the source be who talked to the NYT?

According to a Pelosi aide based in California, the House Democrat is cooperating with the NYT on several fronts on the NSA story: "She hopes there will be a series of two or three more articles she can help them generate," says the source. "She believes the American people have the right to know what their government is doing."

And the American people in this instance support what their government is doing. Yet Crazy Nancy wants to keep the meme rolling, which can only mean that she also believes al Qaeda has a right to know what the "Crusader infidel" government is doing. This would suggest that the Left's sedition has moved beyond political self-interest into outright treason.

And that invokes Tony Blankley's somber warning:

As we enter another year of extreme international danger, the one threat that solely is within America's power to reduce or eliminate is our lack of national unity.

There may be no more agonizing weakness for a nation than major internal division during a time of war, because, unlike the conduct of foreign nations or forces, a lack of internal unity is exclusively our own collective fault…..If we had national unity, government employees and the major media would not think it their patriotic duty to leak or publish classified war secrets. (Only traitors or the careless would be releasing such information, as opposed to today's perhaps subjectively well-intentioned, if objectively misguided [traitors].)

Yes, for the record, I made that edit. Times such as TB describes are no time for such generosity of spirit.

Most damaging of all, America's loud, nasty and publicly displayed disunity heartens our enemies around the world - as well it should. Whether the enemy is a terrorist operative in Fallujah, Frankfurt or Falls Church, Virginia, he knows that defeating our will is the supreme strategic goal. Once we are more concerned with defeating our domestic opponents than our foreign enemies, the downside potential for America is almost unlimited. The enemy now lives in justifiable hope - as we slip into increasingly justifiable despair.

The only quibble I would make with TB's defense of dissent is that there is a time and a place for it, and the middle of a war is neither. Four years ago President Bush declared, "You are either with us, or you're with the terrorists." Unable to beat him politically, driven into a frenzy of frustrated partisan savagery, the DisLoyal Opposition is rapidly reaching the point of siding with the terrorists on the classic axiom, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

As Dubya's approval numbers continue their steady rebound and Dems across the Hill are caught in the Abramoff undertow, their Samson complex - "If we can't rule America, nobody will" - may finally fully ripen. But bitter indeed will be its fruit.

UPDATE 1/5: Even the leftmost reaches of the House Democrat caucus may have had enough of Crazy Nancy if Bob Novak can be believed....